


The Needle Tears a Hole

by hobbitdragon



Series: Witcher Fics [8]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Aftercare, Bondage, Childhood Trauma, Crying, F/M, I shook a witcher and intergenerational trauma fell out, Needles, Processing Trauma Through Kink, Sex Work, nonsexual kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27487288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: Clara had worked at the Passiflora on and off for something close to thirty years now. Some years, she made enough to only take the regulars she liked. That always included Lambert, her one and only witcher client.
Relationships: Lambert (The Witcher)/Original Female Character
Series: Witcher Fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731811
Comments: 18
Kudos: 79





	The Needle Tears a Hole

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Tater for beta-reading!
> 
> SPOILERY CONTENT WARNING:  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> As the tags imply, this is a fic about nonsexual kink used as a way to process trauma feelings. This fic includes a brief, graphic description of needles being used in a kink context. It also contains elements of consensual nonconsent, in that at several points, Lambert is saying "no no no" without meaning for the scene to actually stop, and the scene does not stop. 
> 
> Beyond the kink, this fic features a sex worker character dealing with some of the vagaries of her job, including: mentions of boring/pleasureless sex she is nonetheless consenting to, brief mentions of offscreen harassment, and brief sex-worker-negative language/ideas from a character who isn't her client.

The fabric of the Duke’s sleeve was soft against Clara’s fingers and the wine bubbled sweet and sharp on her tongue as the conversation drifted around her. The Duke’s friends were marginally better than most of the nobles she met, which meant that they still looked at her with mixed hunger and disgust but none of them actually touched her without payment. 

One of them, a petty little Baron whose tiny nose she disliked, was describing the affairs of the estate he had recently inherited. 

“I had to hire a witcher, of all things, before I could inhabit the house,” he moaned. “Gods, they’re beastly, those eyes! And this one had teeth like a dog, all long and pointy. They showed whenever he talked.”

“Did you know that witchers can’t cry?” another man added, this one a witch hunter. He, out of all the men, looked at Clara like he was sizing her up to figure out which pair of thumbscrews to use. She kept having vivid images of stabbing his eyes with the pins in her hair. “They’re not human enough for it. I mean, have you ever seen a cat weeping, or a snake? Of course not.”

“Witchers can cry,” she interrupted, because she hated this man, and because this was part of her job in accompanying the Duke to these functions: he wanted to be seen as special and different and a little shocking. So he brought an expensive and obviously elven prostitute to social functions and kept her on his arm for everyone to see. She didn’t tell the Duke, of course, that his dreams of people talking about his ‘daring’ behind his back were as tame and uninspiring as his skills in bed. The Duke was one of her better regulars and she didn’t want to alienate him. 

The Duke stood up a little straighter, delighted, as the other men turned to her in shock. They'd forgotten she was anything but scenery. 

The witch hunter narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t talk rot,” he snapped. “They have no feelings, and even if they did, they’re physically incapable. They lack the necessary parts!”

“Witchers can cry,” she repeated. 

“How the fuck would you know?” the witch hunter snapped. “Have you studied physiology or psychology as I have? I think not!”

Several of the men responded to this very stupid remark before she could, smiling or looking embarrassed on the witch hunter’s behalf. Clara just lifted her eyebrows at the witch hunter, holding eye contact as she took another sip of her wine. 

“How do you think I know, darling?” she purred, and then watched his face go red and furious as he realized _exactly_ how she would know. 

“Degenerate filth,” he hissed, but under his breath, because he was not a titled man and did not wish to alienate the rich people present who were responsible for funding his Church. Including the Duke.

The Duke set his other hand over Clara's on his arm, warmly stroking her knuckles with his sweaty fingers. No doubt this moment would fuel his happiest thoughts for weeks--which meant that she could expect a hefty tip tonight after she finished sucking him off. 

The conversation drifted after that, to taxation and house repairs and other topics Clara found infinitely boring. She occupied herself by remembering the witcher in question. 

**

Clara had worked at the Passiflora on and off for something close to thirty years now. Some years, she made enough to only take the regulars she liked. That always included Lambert, her one and only witcher client.

In the years Lambert sought her out (and it was always only her, by name, which was flattering) it was nearly always in the late spring. At first she could not understand why this should be--she would have assumed that it was just that he only passed through the city that time of year, but that wasn't the case. Witchers were notable so people gossiped about them, and thus she heard (without even inquiring) that a witcher matching Lambert's description sold magical and alchemical ingredients thrice yearly in the city. It wasn't until she asked the alchemist (whom she went to for disease preventatives and who dealt with witchers fairly regularly) about witchers that she formed a possible explanation for the reliable timing of Lambert's sessions. Most witchers apparently sheltered together during the winters, earning no money, which meant that it would take Lambert time to amass enough coin to afford her services.

If he had ever requested other sorts of encounters, she would suspect that the fact that he only visited her in spring was because months around only men made him want a woman's company. But that couldn't be it, even though he _always_ wanted her services the same time of the year. She was almost certain that her gender had nothing to do with it. 

After an awkward first introduction, Lambert turned out to be an exquisitely respectful client. He always tipped her, every time. Though he counted out the coins carefully and always gave her a neat ten percent extra and not a coin more, she understood that it was not out of stinginess. She imagined he’d give her a lot more if he could afford it. But witchers were working men just as she was a working girl. They knew the value of money, as theirs, too, often came out of their own flesh.

Lambert had made his way to the Passiflora during Clara's first year of work there, and indeed had been among her first clients. He had been foisted on her because none of the other workers would take a witcher other than the White Wolf himself. To tell the truth, Clara hadn’t wanted to to take Lambert either once she’d laid eyes on him; he had already looked furious, scowling and tight-mouthed. 

“The madam said you wanted something unusual,” Clara had said, tentatively. “I don’t like to be blunt, but I'll do it for long enough to say I won't do anything with creatures or children and nobody gets to break my skin or bones no matter the money. Now, with that out of the way, what might do you enjoy?”

His glare had only intensified at this question, and it had taken her a full ten minutes to pry the details of his desired experience out of him. By the time she had enough information to tell him the cost of the services, she tacked on an extra charge of five gold crowns just for the difficulty of negotiating it. 

Thirty years on, however, their routine was smoothly practiced. He always wanted the same thing every time. 

This spring, he had shown up seemingly exhausted and miserable just barely at the end of March, which was much sooner than she normally saw him. Given how full his purse was, presumably he had found a lucrative contract almost immediately after departing from wherever he spent his winters. 

Clara hadn’t asked him questions beyond the one she had to ask: “Usual scenario?” He never liked to talk until afterwards, and sometimes not even then. When he nodded at her, face drawn, she’d brought him up to her room upstairs.

There, she rolled up the carpet and set to assembling what she needed. Out came her strongest ropes. Out came one of her long, sharp hairpins. He, meanwhile, shed first his armor and then all of his clothes, finishing by folding his breeches and socks atop his boots, armor, and swords by one wall. From the pile he drew his coinpurse, as usual counting exactly what he owed plus another precise ten percent. He set the neat stacks of coins on the little bedside table. 

He smelled like honey soap and his hair was still damp from washing, which meant he’d visited Sigi Reuven's bathhouse before coming here. It was a bit of thoughtfulness few of her clients extended just for the workers. Which was ironic, given that of all her clients, what Lambert wanted _least_ involved her coming into contact with potentially grubby parts of his body. 

So Clara unwound the rope and set to securing his legs tightly to one another. When she finished he seated himself on the bare floor so she could bind his left arm to his side. His right arm she bound to the heavy wooden frame of her bed. Given his strength, he could probably move the whole thing if he really wanted to. But he didn’t want that, not during his scenes with her. 

By the time she finished tying him his breaths were already deep and careful in the way people sometimes breathed when they were trying not to panic. She could hear just an edge of raggedness to it as it caught in his throat. 

Their first time, all those years ago, she had thought that this would be a sexual thing to him. But many of the things people asked of workers like her weren’t sexual, and this time, as in all the years before, his cock lay soft and vulnerable against his thigh. Instead his cock standing to attention, a muscle jumped at the corner of his jaw and a vein bulged at one corner of his forehead. He looked grim, like a man going to his death.

As she knelt beside his extended right arm, he squeezed his eyes tightly closed, and this time the tremor in his breath was clearly audible. With the pad of her pointer finger she felt for the vein inside his elbow, just as he’d taught her to do, though truthfully she had no need to feel for it. It stood out starkly from his skin, blue and bulging, a perfect target for the brutal length of her hairpin. 

With care she lined up the long pin and then slid it into his arm. Though she knew the pain was only a small one to start with and that his job frequently required much worse agonies, he flinched, dramatically so.

“No no no--” he begged, now shaking all over. “No, gods, _please_ no--”

The skin always parted easily, which had surprised her at first. She had thought, somehow, that witcher skin must be tougher in some way to allow them to survive. But it wasn’t: it was just as soft and thin as anyone else’s. So she pushed the pin deep, past where it would merely pierce the vein and all the way to the point where she could feel from the resistance that it was buried in the thick muscle of his bicep. Any shallower and it would have just fallen out.

She ignored his pleading, just as she did every time, moving instead to seat herself on the side of the bed to watch. His arm flexed, but when the movement jostled the metal buried in his flesh there, he whimpered piteously.

For several long minutes she could see him fighting with himself, whispering “No, no, no” over and over again. First his lashes glittered, eyes squeezed so tightly shut that it almost disguised the moisture there. Then his next inhale sounded damp and labored, so he held his breath. After that the silent sobbing started, the muscles of his stomach flexing in fascinating ways as he bit his lip and held his breath in a desperate attempt to hold his reaction in for just a little longer. 

When even a witcher couldn’t hold his breath anymore, Lambert just cried. Each exhalation carried with it a small, piteous whimpering that seemed as though it couldn’t possibly come from a man of his size. 

Clara watched with a kind of tender fascination as he shook and shook and the tears poured down the sides of his face into his hair and ears.

Eventually the weeping stopped, and then he lay almost deathly still, barely breathing, like a dead thing on her floor. Only the florid color in his cheeks distinguished him from a corpse. 

When she deemed that he had been left like that for long enough, she knelt beside him and withdrew the needle. A little blood welled up to fill the hollow of his elbow but that was all, not even enough to drip on her floor. She pulled a kerchief out of her pocket and stroked it over his face. 

“There, you survived,” she told him. 

He blinked up at her. This was the part that got to her every time: he always seemed somehow surprised to see her, even though he had come here of his own volition and paid her handsomely for this service. He looked up at her, wide-eyed, and the face that she otherwise only saw in a reflextive sneer or a grimace suddenly looked far younger. 

“You survived,” she repeated. “So let me get you out of that.”

First she untied his arm from the bed, then grasped the ropes around his chest to pull him upright. With slow care, not wanting to give him rope burns, she undid the tight binding of his other arm and his legs. 

When he was free, he still sat numb and unmoving, so she took one of his feet into her lap and started rubbing it, rolling the pads of his toes between her fingers before pushing one thumb gently into the arch. Eventually he blinked at her, pupils contracting. His gaze tracked up her face and body, taking her in as if she were something new he’d never seen before. He drew a sharp breath through his nose and then let it out in a long sigh. She could see that he was coming back to himself. 

Still, she rose and fetched the fine perfumed oils she used sometimes for massage, poured a little of it into one palm, and rubbed it into the rope marks along his legs and arms and belly. By the time she finished, she was seated at his side and he looked more like a normal person. Just sad. 

She wondered if this year he’d finally explain why he wanted this. But when she rose, he rose with her, keeping his eyes on the ground as he bent to get his clothing. In an astonishingly short amount of time, he was fully armored again with his swords strapped to his back. 

“Thank you,” he said at last, and the words were clearly heartfelt. 

“See you next year?” Clara asked in return, and she stood by the door as he crossed to it and pulled it open. 

For one brief moment, he met her eyes. Then he looked away again. 

“Probably,” he agreed, and with another sigh, he was gone. 

**

“Did you see the look on his face? Priceless!” the Duke crowed as he sat by Clara's side in his carriage. His hand was big and warm on her thigh. “‘Witchers _can_ cry--how do you think I know, darling?’ Oh, priceless!” he repeated, grinning hugely. 

He might say it was priceless now, but though he was generous, he still wouldn’t give her more than a fifty percent tip. 

“Have you really slept with witchers?” the Duke asked her then.

Suddenly Clara found that she didn’t want to bring Lambert into this. Not even in the most oblique, anonymous way. 

“No,” she said, faking a faintly regretful smile. “I was just toying with that unpleasant man. Witchers do visit brothels sometimes, but I’ve only heard about it from other girls.”

“Ah, pity,” the Duke said. “I should have liked to know what it's like, sleeping with a witcher. I wonder if there are any lady witchers...If there are, do you think any of them are available for services like yours?”

Not wishing to talk about witchers with the Duke anymore, Clara changed the subject. “If you really want to hear something scandalous, let me tell you about when someone high in the command of the Temple Guard asked me to piss on his face.”

The Duke’s eyes bulged, grip on her thigh tightening. The telling of that story occupied the rest of the ride to his estate, and probably earned her an extra ten percent. 

**Author's Note:**

> That awkward moment when you realize that of the surviving Wolf witchers, Lambert may actually be the most emotionally healthy because he seems to have the best grasp on how incredibly fucked up and terrible witcher training, creation, and experiences are rather than repressing them so deep that it gets turned into self-loathing


End file.
